Touch-sensitive input elements can provide to a connected computing system descriptive information of the location and duration of a user's contact with the surface of the input element. Descriptive touch information may include various combinations of location and duration information that also provide for the detection of a user's movement or a user's gesture, among other touch events such as a tap, across the surface of the input element. When provided to a connected computing system, descriptive touch information may enable a user's interaction with visible interface elements such as on-screen keyboards or selectable menu items, or in other cases may enable other user interaction such as swiping to advance to the next image in a series, or dragging to adjust the center of a displayed map.
Some touch-sensitive input elements are able to provide descriptive touch information for a plurality of simultaneous touch events (i.e. multi-touch input elements). Various combinations of location and duration information of multiple simultaneous contact points may provide for multi-point user gestures. For example, a user may move two separated fingers closer together to adjust the zoom of a webpage (i.e. pinching), or a user may pivot one finger about the other to adjust the orientation of a photo (i.e. rotation).
Generally, descriptive touch information for either single-touch or multi-touch input elements includes only location and duration and various combinations thereof. Further, whether a touch event occurred is binary in that there is no ability to distinguish between forceful touch events and light touch events. In other words, very few touch-sensitive input elements employ downward touch force as a variable input.